Roddy
Masculine · “Germanic "famous power”
Germanic naming was obsessed with reputation, and the element hrod, fame, is the proof. Robert is fame-bright, Roger is fame-spear, Roland is fame-land, Rudolf is fame-wolf, and Roderick — behind Roddy — is fame-ruler. A whole naming system built on being talked about.
How old is the name Roddy?
Roddy first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Roddy alive today was born around 1959, making them about 66 years old. About 1,800 people named Roddy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Roddy most popular?
Roddy peaked in 1946, reaching #746 nationally. Today it ranks #7679, 6,933 places below that high. See the whole 1946 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From hrod-ric to Roddy
The story of Roddy
The Germanic heroic world treated reputation as the one thing that survived a man, and said so explicitly: Beowulf ends by praising its hero as most eager for fame, and the poem's ethical vocabulary — lof, dom, blæd — is all about renown. The naming system matches. Hrod combined freely with almost every other element, producing dozens of names still in use, and its Latinized forms spread across Europe: Roderick was the last Visigothic king of Spain, defeated in 711 by the army that landed at Gibraltar. Roddy as an American given name peaks in 1946.
Meaning
Germanic "famous power"
From Roderick, Germanic hrod, fame or renown, plus ric, ruler or power. Roddy is the diminutive, also used for Rodney, which is a separate English place name, and for Rodolfo. The hrod element is one of the most productive in Germanic naming and lies behind Robert, Roger, Roland, Rudolf, Rosamund and the surname Rogers.
How the name formed
- hrod-ric
- Roderick
- Roddy
Related forms: Rodrigo · Rodrigo · Roderich
Pronouncing Roddy
ROD-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first. Roddy and Roddie are said identically; the -y and -ie spellings differ only on the page.
Nicknames for Roddy
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1914
- Most boys named
- 195985 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #746reached in 1946
- Change vs 2021
- +25.0%10 in 2025, from 8
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Roddy in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Rodrigo in Spanish — related form
- Rodrigo in Italian — related form
- Roderich in German — related form
Roddys among us
people named Roddy are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 170,808 born in 2025 was named Roddy
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Roddy
- #7679
- Roddy on the 2025 chart
- #910
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Roddy went to 10 boys in 2025, but Rody is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 18, which makes it the 910th most-given boys’ name of the year — 6,769 places above the chart.
- Roddy10
- Rody8
About 1 boy in 94,893 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 170,808 for Roddy itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Nunzio test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Roddy's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Nunzio climbed just as high around 1913, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Nunzio's path sketches the road Roddy is walking now.
Roddy sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Roddy beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Roddy in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The elements have settled Germanic meanings.
- Rod is an immediate short form that stands alone.
- It is short, phonetic and impossible to mispronounce.
- It reads as a nickname rather than a full legal name.
- Several fuller names could lie behind it.
- The 1940s peak dates a bearer strongly.
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Roddy
Masculine · #7679 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Roddys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,800 people named Roddy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Roddy?
- Roddy is the most-used spelling in US records — 10 of the 18 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Rody.
- How popular is the name Roddy in 2025?
- Roddy ranks #7679 among US boy names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Roddy?
- About 1 in every 170,808 US boys born in 2025 was named Roddy — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Roddy with classmates?
- Roddy will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Roddy
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Early#7679 · Obie#7679 · Huston#7679 · Knute#7679 · Rance#7679 · Blain#7679 · Doyle#7679 · Millard#7679
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Roddy? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Roddy and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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